Foreign Investment in West Africa

Abstract

T tHIS paper is concerned with foreign investment in the four countries of West Africa which are attached to the British Commonwealth-Nigeria, the Gold Coast, Sierra Leone, and the Gambia. It has become normal to speak of British investments in the four countries as 'foreign'. Our passports describe us as 'British Subject: Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies': yet in the four countries of West Africa we have no right of entry for our persons, and British capital is subject to disabilities and limitations which apply equally to capital of other national origins. It seems to have been accepted, by us as a nation, that as part of the process of giving self-government to the colonies, we shall call ourselves foreigners in them, and be treated as such. Some British investors, long established in West Africa, regret this. Their prosperity is so closely identified with the prosperity of West Africa; their senior managers have for so many years lived in those places and feel so much part of the local communities; and so many of the political leaders are closely associated with British firms as former employees, or as sons of employees, or by other personal links, that it seems a pity that these close relationships and common interests cannot be recognized by some status better than that of foreigners. French investment in French West Africa is certainly not 'foreign', and it would be absurd to apply that adjective to it. A recent article in The Times on the Belgian Congo, used the phrase 'foreign capital' to describe non-Belgian capital. Nevertheless, there it is. So for the purpose of this paper the description of British investment in the four countries as 'foreign' is accepted. How much foreign capital is there in the four countries? Professor Frankel has given us figures for the period up to I936. I have also consulted figures published by the OEEC, by the International Bank Mission to Nigeria, and by various official inquiries and company reports. In addition to fixed assets, we must count the value of trading stocks of merchandise and produce; for West Africa, in Sir Keith Hancock's famous phrase, is the Traders' Frontier. This value can be fairly closely estimated. All these figures support the view that the total value of foreign capital invested in the four countries is of the order of ?200 million. This figure happens to be fairly near the figure which ICI spent on new plants and factories between I946 and I954. In terms of British investment, therefore, foreign capital in the four countries must be reckoned small. What is surprising is that it is of the same order of magnitude as Mr Tyson gave in his paper on foreign investment in India.1 See International Affairs, vol. 3I, no. 2 (April I955), pp. I74-8I.